Life Style

Mel May only realised she was different while reading a news article one day.“Wait, what? Some people hear a voice in their head?” she thought at the time.She was stunned to discover that this was not just a figure of speech – her friends were actually chatting to themselves in their minds.May, a 30-year-old Australian video producer who lives in New York, remembers trying to explain it to her family.“My dad was like, ‘You are lying’,” she says.But her father came around once May started working with psychologists who agreed – she is one of very few people who lack inner speech.Russell Hurlburt, a psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has studied people with a range of inner experiences, like May’s. Photo: Instagram/apa_org/

The Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMOA) has confirmed it has taken over preparations for the city’s exhibition at the 2026 Venice Biennale.Rather than focus the exhibition on the work of a single artist, which has been the case since 2009, the next Hong Kong exhibition in Venice will feature the work of several artists selected from a long list containing over 200 names.The list includes artists who in the past five years have received commissions from Hong Kong government-run museums or offices for new works, and others nominated by tertiary institutions, the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.I anticipate that the exhibition can promote Chinese traditional culture and Hong Kong’s own special characteristicsFrankie Yeung, Hong Kong Arts Develop...

Universal will build its first European theme park in Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced, unveiling a deal which could create thousands of jobs and attract millions of tourists.“Today we closed the deal on a multibillion-pound investment that will see Bedford home to one of the biggest entertainment parks in Europe,” Starmer said, referring to the English market town north of London.No precise figures were given for the accord, which was struck with US communications giant Comcast, which owns Universal, after years of discussions with UK leaders.There are currently five Universal theme parks around the globe. The first was opened in 1964 in Hollywood, California, based around the original film studios, followed later by a park in Orlando, Florida. Three others are in Asia: in B...

This weekend, Hong Kong’s F&B scene is serving up a number of exciting limited edition dinners and new menus. Now is an especially good time to sample them before next weekend’s plethora of Easter brunches takes over (or you simply use the long weekend to get out of Hong Kong).From Korean Hanwoo beef to “hot chook” and Yorkies, it’s a wide ranging and eclectic selection this weekend, but here are three dinners you absolutely shouldn’t miss.Friday, April 11Eaton HK’s Tomorrow Maybe gallery offers an interactive dining experience with a menu created by Sapphire Ketchup. Photo: HandoutThis Friday, Eaton HK’s Tomorrow Maybe gallery will set the stage for an interactive dining experience featuring a menu crafted by Sapphire Ketchup – aka Alison Ta – experimental feeder and co-founder of Sav...

This is the second of a three-part series looking at Vietnam as it evolved from a poverty-stricken post-war country into the tourist destination it is today.Vietnam’s first post-war tourists from non-socialist and non-Communist countries were strictly chaperoned and could only stay in approved accommodation. After a number of reforms at the end of the 1980s and early 90s, tourists could choose where they went and where they stayed.In early 1994 a friend and I flew into Vietnam. I swear the engines went silent, then roared into action, on the final approach to Ho Chi Minh City.As we taxied to the terminal we passed wrecked planes, including many US military aircraft from the war, that had been pushed to the sides of the runway and just left there.Travelling by cyclo in Vietnam in 1994. Viet...

Optimists always say that with every challenge comes new opportunities.But with the economically illiterate US President Donald Trump single-handedly unleashing a new dawn of American protectionism, sending stock indices falling and world markets into a tailspin, things are looking bleak and may get worse.Maybe there’s a bright side to focus on, however.For those of us in Hong Kong, which is still one of the freest ports in the world, the situation hopefully is not so bad. In fact, there might even be a chance to take advantage of the turmoil.If French champagne makers end up selling less to the US, there are plenty of society events in Hong Kong ready to boost their consumption, Andrew Sun says. Photo: ShutterstockSome of the countries hit hardest by tariffs are Asia’s major factory produ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way we live, work and play – and it is revolutionising healthcare in many ways, too.Its use in creating smarter processes and systems could lead to cheaper, more efficient healthcare for everyone.By flagging issues for doctors, AI allows them to focus on complex cases and improve diagnostic accuracy, says Christine Yuan Huang, a doctor-scientist and biotech entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Quantum Life, a Hong Kong company that aims to reinvent healthcare for healthy longevity.AI helps those in healthcare provide more personalised, targeted treatments, increasing the likelihood of success while minimising side effects, she says.Getting a mammogram is a key first step in breast cancer detection. Radiologists are now working with AI ...

It is a few days before the penultimate episode of The White Lotus season three drops, and Leslie Bibb, Carrie Coon and Michelle Monaghan are convening virtually to discuss their fascinating and disturbingly accurate depiction of female friendship.Their characters – Jaclyn (Monaghan), an actress newly married to a younger man; Laurie (Coon), a single mum and lawyer; and Kate (Bibb), a wealthy wife from Texas – are childhood friends on a girls’ trip in Thailand that has all the tension and suspense of a horror movie.Unlike others on the show, these blonde besties are not facing financial ruin, nor are they troubled souls seeking to avenge their father’s death, but their A-plus passive aggression and impeccable gossiping have been just as compelling to watch.Who cares about a corpse when you...

2/5 starsRami Malek shone in Mr. Robot, his breakout TV drama about cybersecurity and hackers, and it seems that ever since, he has been seeking something similar.James Bond movie No Time to Die, in which he played the villain, was very much a case of the spy who bored me. And now The Amateur, adapted from a novel by Robert Littell, crosses the same terrain.Malek plays Charles Heller, a CIA cryptographer working at Langley, Virginia. When his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) is murdered in a terrorist attack in London, the distraught Charlie has only one thing on his mind: revenge.Confronting his bosses, he demands mission-specific training. To shut him up, they agree, putting him with Laurence Fishburne’s Colonel Henderson, who soon realises that Charlie does not have the mettle to be a cold-blood...

A large new study adds to evidence that diabetes during pregnancy is linked with an increased risk of brain and nervous system problems in children, including autism, researchers say.Whether diabetes actually causes those problems remains unclear. But when mothers have diabetes while pregnant, children are 28 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder, according to an analysis of data pooled from 202 earlier studies involving more than 56 million mother-child pairs.They were also 20 per cent higher for trouble with communication, 17 per cent higher for movement problems and 16 per cent higher for learning disorders than in children whose mothers did not have diabetes while pregnant.Diabetes diagnosed before pregnancy appeared to confer a 39 per cent higher risk...